


Monster

by canadianstuck



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-11
Updated: 2017-01-11
Packaged: 2018-09-16 19:46:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9287165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canadianstuck/pseuds/canadianstuck
Summary: Angela can't escape her past, and it's threatening to drown her. Things may change when she gets a letter from an old friend.





	

Coils of steam drift off the mug in Angela’s hands. The view outside her window is meditative; frost coats the branches of the trees, just beginning to glow under the light of the not-quite-risen sun.  
When she first stopped watching the news, she hated the quiet. There was a need to know, to be filled with noise. Her patients would sometimes ask if she had seen this story or that, or what she thought of so-and-so. News made good bedside talk, right up there with the weather and children. So she forced herself to watch, until the fragments of her friends scattered through the stories became too much.  
A gang takedown in Mexico City, criminals delivered to the steps of the courthouse. Jack’s fingerprints all over it, the only witness reporting a “blond man with a red mask”.  
Grainy stills from a security camera showing someone, something, holding a shotgun, blurring at the edges. “Reports say the wanted man appeared to crawl over the bodies after they were slain.” The guilt over what she has done will never, never stop being a pit that crawls in Angela’s stomach.  
And so she stops watching the news because her heart is shattering slowly and surely, and her mornings are left silent and still.  
The clunk of her mailbox closing draws her from her reverie. She waits a moment—it is hard to speak to people who are not her patients, and her mail carrier is particularly friendly with the regulars on his route. When she’s sure he’s gone, she gets the mail and brings it inside, leafing through it. Ads, ads, bill, ads, bill, and on the bottom, one envelope addressed in a hand intimately familiar to her. Doctor Ziegler it reads as it always does, never Angela, painstakingly written out in English, French, and Japanese kanji, to ensure it will get to where it needs to go.  
She itches to open the letter, as she has not heard from Genji in some time, but there are patients who need to be attended to, and so she leaves it on the table where it will not be forgotten. She doubts she’d forget it anyways, but her thoughts scatter sometimes these days, and she has not yet mastered the art of marshalling them.  
The day passes in a blur. Always, there is someone else waiting to see her, waiting for her to fix their ailments. Surgeries are easy. Five minutes of talk, of assuring the patient they will be fine, explaining the procedure they are about to do, and then all her social obligations are gone. The team that works with her does not banter. All conversation is strictly procedural, and Angela is grateful that she need only concentrate on keeping the patient alive.  
One man has a scar that runs from his forehead to his chin when she goes to meet with him, and she is caught for a second in the doorway, a fist tightening around her heart. In that moment he is Jack, about to laugh and tell her jokes while she patches him up, telling her about the latest mission he’s just run. In that moment, she has not yet suffered heartbreak, but she knows it is coming and it fills her with dread.  
“Ah yes, this is Doctor Ziegler,” the nurse who is prepping the man says, and Angela snaps out of it, drags herself through the layers of pain until she is again in the sleek hospital room. She consults her chart and smiles up at the man. “Mister Gubler, a pleasure. Has the procedure been explained to you yet? I’ll run you through what to expect before the anesthesia team arrives…”  
A cup of tea in the staff room steadies her, the warmth a welcome feeling as it spreads through her chest. Five minutes, that’s all she has, and then she has patients who need her, and off she goes.  
The letter is still waiting for her when she finally makes it home. She barely takes off her coat and boots before she scoops it up, almost tearing the letter inside in her excitement to have at it. A piece of paper and a thin paper sachet fall out of the envelope. Though she’s curious, she sets the sachet aside and begins with the letter.  
Dear Angela it reads, a first. Angela has enough of a grasp on Japanese culture to understand the implications of the use of her first name. She smiles and continues to read. The letter is not long, and she treasures every word. Genji’s writing curls around itself, an elegant cursive at odds with his carefree nature. He writes about Zenyatta, the monk who saved his life as much as Angela herself did. That’s not what he writes, but Angela knows it to be true. He tells her about the temple, about the peace of the mountains. I would like you to see it one day. You would find it beautiful. When the air is clear, the whole world stretches out before you. He writes about his brother, and how he hopes that Hanzo will one day find the peace that he has found; he has suffered enough, and Genji forgave him long ago. He must now learn to forgive himself. The end of the letter is full of questions for her. How she’s doing. If she still does surgeries, if her smile still brings comfort to her patients like it once brought to him. You said in your last letter to me that you were learning to enjoy the peace found in a teacup, he says. The monks here grow their own tea and dry it. I thought you may enjoy a taste. If you like it, tell me, and I will send you a package of it. Angela wonders what the monks thought about him making a single teabag to send to a woman half a world away. Though she is tempted to put the kettle on right away, she makes herself stay and finish the letter first. It would be good to see you again; I have not forgotten the great debt I owe to you. I will not impose myself on your hospitality; but I will hope that one day, when you need a break from your work, you will consider seeing the mountains an option. There is at once an elation and a strange disappointment. “See the mountains” he says, not “see me”.  
Angela doesn’t know why that’s disappointing to her, or if she does, she won’t admit it to herself. They are friends, and close ones at that after all this time, but that is all they are in the end. Friends.  
***  
Angela spends two days humming and hawing over how to respond to the letter. Each time she tries, it never seems to sound right. She can get past the pleasantries, thank him for the tea—she tries to capture how the fragrance filled her apartment, how it tasted like sweet fresh air—but every time she gets to what he said about the mountains, about seeing them, about seeing him… The words curl up and die in her pen. No amount of effort will coax them out, nothing she says sounds right.  
The hospital makes up her mind for her, in the end. She finishes a complicated surgery, an emergency one shoehorned into her schedule. An industrial accident that left a gaping wound in a young man’s chest, bits of shrapnel embedded in his skin. The paramedics disobeyed orders and took him to the hospital Angela works at, because she’s the only one who can save him, and they know this. Everyone knows it. The doctor who walks into her room and pulls her off a routine liver transplant knows that he can transplant a liver, but he can’t save the man who’s bleeding out on a gurney in the next operating theatre.  
But Doctor Ziegler can.  
As she works, she can’t help but notice how much the man’s injury reminds of her Gabriel. Of finding him there, chest ripped open, the life draining from his body. Pleading for someone, anyone to help her save him. Feeling his breath leak out in a half-caught hiss, the desperation of it all nearly choking her, forcing her to make a choice she never should of made. The choice that made Gabriel a monster.  
“I will not lose you too,” she mumbles, the words escaping her before she can stop them. An assistant looks up from the delicate process of keeping fresh blood moving from bags into the body, thinking maybe he missed an instructor. “We’re doing fine,” Angela says, putting on her best doctor voice, and the assistant goes back to the blood.  
Three times, the patient is nearly lost. He is pulled back by the finest of threads and the best hands in the business. Three times, the anxiety rises in Angela’s throat, threatening to overwhelm her if she loses her focus for even a second.  
When the surgery is finished, the young man is alive, his chest and face stitched back together, a blossom of needlework that is trapping the life inside him. Angela is exhausted, and thinks only that she wants a cup of tea to wash the bitter taste out of her mouth and dislodge the lump in her throat.  
She enters the staff room, just as one of the residents switches the tv over to a different channel. It’s a think piece, an investigative report, about Overwatch, about her friends. A picture flashes on screen, one she remembers taking: Jack and Gabriel, arms around each other’s shoulders. The sun glints off the water behind them. She remembers it, a fishing trip that they all went on one weekend. Her eyes catch on Gabriel’s face, the skin still smooth and unmarked, the smile still reaching his eyes. He has no idea what kind of monster that Angela will turn him into yet. He cannot begin to imagine, in that photo, the pain that he will suffer every day after she tries desperately to help him.  
The emotions that have been building up burst through the dam she’s built in her chest. She doesn’t recall sitting down, but she’s on the floor, folding in on herself, hot tears streaming down her face. They call her a miracle worker, a saviour, an angel.  
She’s a monster.  
Gentle hands curl around her shoulders, trying to pull her apart. Soft voices start to pry at the edges of her shell, trying to coax her. “Doctor Ziegler?” one of the residents tries. Jasmin, Angela thinks her name is. She’s calm, holds herself well, always soft spoken and polite. The doctors like to send her out to help soothe anxious parents when their children are being treated.  
The irony is not lost on Angela.  
“Doctor Ziegler?” Jasmin, again. And then, “Angela?”  
Angela lets herself be pulled apart, lets strong hands rough from constant washing lift her to her feet. She wipes a hand across her face. “I’m sorry. I lost a patient.”  
Jasmin’s face fills with confusion. “I just heard the surgery was successful.”  
“Different patient.” Tears still leak out of Angela’s eyes, but she can see through them now. “Excuse me.”  
***  
Stress is the official verdict. Emergency leave is quickly written out—better to send Angela for rest and relaxation than to lose her to permanent burnout.  
At home, curled up on the couch, Angela finds the words suddenly free themselves from her pen. She buys a plane ticket, writes the date and flight number on the bottom of the page. At the post office, she pays the extra money to have it delivered by the end of the week. It disappears behind the counter and there’s no going back. She doesn’t know if the letter will arrive in time, doesn’t know if Genji will be at the airport like she asked.  
Angela doesn’t know if anything will work out or if she’s going to end up on windswept tarmac with nowhere to go, but she knows that she’s suffocating and can’t stay here any longer.  
On the plane, she curls up in her seat, catlike, and watches the world spill out underneath her. Anxiety bubbles in her stomach—what if he’s not there?—but it feels strangely remote. There’s nothing she can do about it anyways. She can’t get off, and so she has to wait until the inevitable conclusion, whatever that conclusion may be.  
The mountains rise up, closer to the plane than Angela ever thought possible. As the plane descends, Angela’s anxiety rises. What ifs run through her head. What if you aren’t there? What if you didn’t really want to see me? Just said you did to be polite?  
She drifts through the terminal, her one bag clutched in a hand going white from how hard she clings to the only familiar thing she has left. People and omnics everywhere, and none of them familiar. Her heart sinks with each step, each face she sweeps over that she doesn’t recognize. The wave of desperation is cresting above her, threatening to crash down, when—  
“Angela?”  
The voice, half overlaid with robotic tones, makes her turn. She would recognize Genji anywhere, and the relief that he came catches her off guard. Without thinking about it, about how it would look, she throws herself into his arms. There’s a moment of hesitation, and then his arms close around her slight form. “It is good to see you too.” There’s a note of amusement in his voice, but mostly, it’s filled with sincere delight.  
Angela stretches the hug out as long as she dares before she pulls away. “I’m glad you came,” she says, voice thick with emotion.  
“As am I.” He reaches down and takes her bag from her, hefting it over his shoulder like it weighs nothing. “Let us go.”  
***  
It turns out that though Genji is eager to show her the temple, he’s made other arrangements for her accommodations. A small flat that’s meant to be rented out to long term visitors, a month at a time. “I did not know how long you wished to stay. You included no return date. So I paid for three months, in case,” Genji says as he unlocks the door.  
“That’s quite a while,” Angela says, pulling her coat and boots off, enjoying her first real stretch since Geneva.  
“I’m sorry to assume,” Genji says hurriedly. “I don’t mean to pressure you, I just—”  
“It’s fine,” Angela says with a smile. “I wouldn’t impose for so long, but I know it was done out of thoughtfulness.”  
As she steps past him to the kitchen, Angela could swear she hears him murmur under his mask that all his time is hers. She buries her sudden blush with a coughing fit and a glass of water. “Have you eaten?” Genji asks from behind her.  
“Just what they serve on the plane,” she says, grateful that her voice stays level.  
“Let me treat you.”  
***  
The restaurant he takes her to is a hole in the wall place not far from the apartment. The short, rounded woman who serves them speaks no English, but Genji knows enough of the language to order for them. A pot full of tea and two bowls of steaming dumplings descend on the table, and they are left to themselves in the smoky pall of the room. The conversation stumbles at first—talking in person is so much harder than it is in letters, and Angela finds herself distracted with the way Genji lifts his mask up only enough to slip a dumpling into mouth, the dimness of the place still bright enough to catch the sliver of flesh this reveals—but it finds its flow after the second cup of tea. There are years of catching up to do, and Angela is delighted to find that the letters, no matter how well written, do not begin to even scratch the surface of all the things they have to discuss.  
They talk until the prodigious teapot is finally empty, long after the dumpling bowls have been emptied and carried away. There is a pause in the conversation as the woman takes the pot and the money that Genji holds out, smiling at him, and then Genji looks back at Angela. “I know you must be tired, but there is one more thing I’d like you to see, if you have the energy.”  
The plane ride passed in such a stupor that Angela finds herself fairly well rested, if sore. “I’d love to see whatever it is,” she says as she stands, pulling her coat back on.  
On the curb, the fresh air crisp enough to make Angela’s cheeks red, Genji hails one of the little carts that serve as taxis of a sort. It pulls up, and he takes Angela’s hand and helps her up. The moment catches her by surprise. After it ends, when Genji is pulling himself up into the cart, she glances down at her hand as if hoping to find his fingers still laced with hers.  
Disappointment seeps through her, though she isn’t sure why.  
Genji points out the sights to her as the cart rattles along, but Angela is only half listening. She’s preoccupied with trying to catch glimpses of him subtly, so he won’t notice. He has changed in a way that, though he wrote about it in letters, is something entirely different to see in person. She remembers the anger that coiled beneath his metal skin last time she saw him, the pain that she couldn’t make go away. The fear she’d created another Gabriel. Now, though, he is still, his voice easy. This is no act. There is a peace within him that she finds herself both enamoured with and jealous of.  
“We’re here,” Genji says, stepping off the cart. The last few streets have been filled with temples rather than houses. Spires stretch up to the sky, catching the dying rays of sunlight.  
Angela isn’t sure where here is exactly, because they’re at the last building before the road winds off into a yak trail. “A few minutes walk,” Genji explains. As he starts to walk off, Angela gathers her nerve and slips her hand in his, a brush that could be shaken off if he wants. There is a pause as Genji looks down, and she worries he’ll let go, but his fingers wrap around hers and they walk off together.  
Genji leads her a ways down the trail until it curves up, up, up, and suddenly they are standing on the edge of a mountain, the whole of the valley laid out before them. Shadows already stretch across most of the snow-capped peaks, but the light still manages to filter down, catching patches of snow and dying them rose for the briefest of moments. The vastness of it catches Angela by surprise, and the beauty of it even more so. Pictures don’t do the mountains justice.  
They stand there in silence, fingers intertwined, until the last of the light has oozed off the snow, leaving only blues and blacks in its wake. Stars begin to twinkle above the peaks, far more than Angela has ever seen. There is no light and no atmosphere to hide them. They are as numerous above her as the snowflakes below her it seems. Captivated, she barely notices when she starts shivering. The nighttime chill sets in quickly here.  
“We should head back,” Genji says. “Getting frostbite might ruin your vacation.”  
Angela stays put a moment longer before reluctantly allowing herself to be pulled back to the road. They have to walk a few blocks before they can find another cart, but it’s less than twenty minutes until they return to the apartment.  
Inside, it’s cozy, though the lights flicker a little from time it time. Angela takes off her coat and boots. “I will see you in the morning then?” Genji says. He hasn’t made any attempt to come inside.  
Angela’s happiness fades abruptly as she realizes that she doesn’t want him to leave. She isn’t sure why it never occurred to her that he wouldn’t be staying overnight, since there’s only one bedroom, but now that she knows, the ache is starting to spread through her chest again. “I…” she says, trailing off when she realizes she doesn’t know what to say. She lifts a hand, fingers brushing against the metal of his mask. They find the seam, and suddenly, there’s the desire to know, to see his eyes, to see a smile instead of just hearing it in his voice.  
His hand closes over hers, a sudden pressure. They stand there, finding the balance, the silence passing for conversation between them.  
Angela remembers when they brought Genji to her, barely alive. Remembers worrying for him when he left to seek his own way, hating himself. Remembers the first time she wondered if she was a monster. Her eyes begin to sting as the memories seep in, and though she keeps herself from crying, it is only just.  
Slowly, Genji’s hand falls away from hers, and he offers no resistance as she pulls the mask off.  
His eyes catch hers, as vibrant as the moment she first saw them, but there is uncertainty there. He stands perfectly still as her fingers trace over the scars, the marks of stitches still visible around the edges of the ones that were particularly bad. “Are you—”  
“I am at peace with myself,” Genji says. There is no resignation in his voice, only honesty. And then, quieter, “You saved me, not destroyed me.”  
Angela’s hand falls away. Genji makes no move to put his mask back on, only watches her watching him.  
Slowly, as if trying not to startle a bird, Angela leans up, watching his face. She dreads what she might see there, but the possibilities excite her too. At first, there’s no response and then—  
They press together, a kiss that starts off soft and tentative and quickly becomes deep and passionate. His arms wrap around her waist and he pulls her close to him, while she cups his face in her hands. When they break apart, Angela bites her lip. “I’m sorry,” she says, voice barely above a whisper. “Oh Genji, I’m sorry, that was thoughtless, I…”  
He smiles at her and steps into the apartment. “It was what my heart hoped for from the moment I received your letter. It is what my heart hoped for for years of letters.”  
“Oh,” she whispers. “Me too.”  
Genji smiles at her and begins to shut the door. In that moment, for the first time in in years, Angela feels like maybe she isn’t a monster after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed ^^


End file.
